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Pringle Brandon has bagged a project which could lead to the total redevelopment of all but the tower of the iconic Shell Centre on London’s South Bank

The practice will oversee the decamp of half the oil company’s staff to 40 Bank Street in Heron Quays, London Docklands, allowing Shell bosses to proceed with their bid to find a redevelopment partner for the prime three hectares South Bank site.

As part of their long-term scheme Shell will continue to occupy only the 27-storey skyscraper part of the Howard Robertson-designed 1961 complex – a spokesperson confirmed.

However the remainder of the site, including the nine-storey wings and public realm could be entirely redeveloped. A Shell spokesperson said: ‘We haven’t commissioned an architect [for this project] and we are not intending to. [We are] going out to tender for a development partner.’

Close to 18,600m² of office space in the 153m-tall Cesar Pelli & Associates-designed Docklands tower has been made available for the decamp project.

Since 2006 Structuretone has been working as main contractor on an ongoing £10 million project to modernise the 107m-tall Portland Stone-clad Shell tower.

The centre was designed to accommodate 5,000 staff and boasts its own cinema and near-Olympic sized swimming pool in the basement.

Following a public inquiry in 2004 Arup Associates landed planning permission for a Lend Lease-backed redevelopment scheme of the complex but the project has since stalled.

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